Of gods and men

[Thalia]

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<dt>Jaxen</dt>
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But he only "saved" things to avoid his own threatened demise, not from the goodness of his heart.

Hmm, I don’t know that I necessarily agree with that – though I mean for Norse Loki, not WoT Loki. He was utterly amoral, but I don’t think he was selfish - at least not in terms of his motives being his own gain. How many of his actions actually benefited him? I can’t think of any tricks where he originally stood to gain anything personally (maybe I’m wrong), unless you count the pleasure of the mischief itself. He certainly didn’t get any respect or power from it, and quite often his actions resulted in gains for the other gods, albeit usually after they got mad and demanded he fix his mistakes (although he didn’t always offer aid only to save his own skin – like the retrieval of Thor’s stolen hammer. Bet Marvel don’t use that one in their movies!).

But, point being, I don’t think he ever intended the consequences - good or bad – that resulted from his actions; his mischief sets off a chain reaction that he in turn reacts to. A selfish bastard wouldn’t have been so free with the rewards. Why didn’t he trick the dwarves into making weapons for himself instead of the others? If it was so freaking awesome, why didn’t he keep the eight-legged horse instead of giving it to Odin? Not that I’m suggesting he did either out of the goodness of his heart, I just think it’s representative of the chaos he embodies. Chaos doesn’t have purpose.

Loki was a wildcard. He acted outside the social conventions of his time - particularly but not limited to his gender ambiguity. Aside from the horse thing and cross-dressing, he’s supposed to have lived eight years as a human woman, right? Having regular human children in that time (at least he doesn’t deny the accusation). And a lot of his trickery is born out of the urge to defy the impossible (I bet you can’t build a wall in 6 months! Nothing can harm our beloved Balder! Everyone will cry for him, cos he’s so awesome! etc etc) rather than actual malicious intent. Like most of the chaos type deities, he’s the change that prevents stagnation.

That’s probably a very rosy Loki interpretation, but I love me a good anti-hero (or a redeemable villain) so that totally warps my opinion *grin*

Back to 5th Age Loki, I think that’s pretty much awesome.